Bullock listened to the nurses describe their fight for a first contract, then made his way an hour south, to a coronavirus-safe, drive-in rally on the campus of Salish Kootenai College, on the Flathead Reservation. Molly Moody, an organizer with the Service Employees International Union, gave Bullock a hug-they’d first met twenty years ago, when he was a labor lawyer. Purple stickers and “ WE SUPPORT KRH NURSES” yard signs seemed to be everywhere, along with whiteboard flowcharts and children’s toys. In a small office in Kalispell, a northwestern town best known for its proximity to the sublime Glacier National Park, Bullock greeted a few of the seven hundred nurses who recently formed a union at Kalispell Regional Healthcare, a local hospital network. Which is why, on that Saturday, he made sure to visit a union headquarters and a tribal reservation. To win, Bullock needs every vote he can get from Montana’s traditional Democratic coalition, which is composed of seniors and conservationists and, above all, Native Americans and union workers. As a sitting governor, his handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been on trial: his spring shutdown earned high praise, but case numbers have recently soared. Bullock was trailing or leading in the polls by a point or two, depending on the week. A former state attorney general and onetime Presidential candidate, he is challenging the freshman Republican senator Steve Daines in a race that could very well flip the Senate in the Democrats’ favor. On the cool, drizzly last Saturday of September, Montana’s governor, Steve Bullock, spent yet another afternoon on the road, travelling from the capital, Helena, to the western part of the state for a string of appearances.
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